Target Markets of Levi’s and Gap

Most probably you are familiar with Levi’s and GAP, or at least have heard their names. These two brands are renowned and popular representatives of the fashion and clothing industry. Levi’s and Gap were founded in the San Francisco century apart. Both are mostly known for their denim production. They are mainly engaged in the production of apparel, footwear, and accessories. These two companies are indeed successful and have a unique place in the market. Surely, customers had an immense impact on the success of these brands. So, let’s discuss Levi’s and Gap to identify the target markets chosen by them together with the reasons behind their choices.

Starting with Levi’s, let’s discuss one of its campaign examples.

Levi’s was the first company that initially offered first denim clothing to consumers. Throughout the years the brand was associated with denim and its denim production remains highly demanded and popular to this day. To celebrate its almost 2 century-long history, the brand came up with the “Live in Levi’s” campaign.

This campaign was all about sharing experiences, memories, moments that different people from all around the world had while wearing Levi’s jeans. This campaign became a platform where customer of Levi’s could share their own stories related to the brand.

Let’s discuss a video from “Live in Levi’s” campaign presented by Levi’s.

This video by Levi’s features young people from different parts of the world. Each of them is bold, interesting, confident, and unique in his/her way. They all have different occupations, hobbies, and lifestyles, but there is one thing that connects them all. All these people are wearing Levi’s jeans. Throughout the video, each of them shares the connection, feelings, and memories that they have associated with Levi’s jeans.

Through their short stories you get an understanding of what the brand means to them and get to know how different people can be and still prefer the same brand. This video represents the “Live in Levi’s” campaign and shows that anyone can find something preferable from Levi’s products. The brand stands for diversity, inclusion, and timelessness. The brand continues using “Live in Levi’s” campaign to this day by making different additions and changes to it.

Now it’s time to discuss the communication strategy and slogan of Levi’s.

“Quality never goes out of style.”

Throughout years, different lines from successful ads of Levi’s were considered slogans for the brand. In 1983, Levi’s introduced its slogan “Quality never goes out of style” in a newly released commercial. This slogan was a perfect choice for Levi’s. It is practical, simple, meaningful, and timeless like the production of Levi’s.

It stands for all the core values that the brand stood for from the very beginning. Levi’s was always famous for the outstanding quality of its products. With time the production of the brand has evolved, changed, and extended, but the quality is still there to this day.

The slogan shows that Levi’s stays true to its background and keeps up with time without forgetting about its initial promise to the customers. The value and message that the slogan carries will always remain applicable and relatable. You can sense the strength, wisdom, and confidence of the brand from the slogan.

Levi’s tells the customers that many brands will come and go bringing new trends that will be out of date at some point. Meanwhile, Levi’s will always be popular and demanded and will continue to prosper as it maintains the aspect of quality that is vital at all times.

Now let’s move on to the segmentation strategy of Levi’s.

To understand the target market of Levi’s, let’s discuss and analyze the following commercial of the brand.

We can see a very bold, playful, interesting, and engaging video full of many details, movement, and characters. It is very dynamic, vibrant, and catchy. The scenes are changing extremely fast, but the transitions are accurate.

The song that is playing throughout the video gives more energy and positivity to this commercial. The whole commercial is a collection of scenes depicting groups of people having different cultural backgrounds, races, ages, and preferences.

All of them are dancing in various styles under the same song.  All these characters are wearing Levi’s clothing showing that it has something suitable for every age and preference. Despite their differences, these people collectively represent the target segment that Levi’s wants to focus on.

All the characters in the video look highly active, positive, and passionate about their lives. They live in the moment and love to hang out. These people seem to enjoy being surrounded by crowds and being in the center of attention. They feel good, confident, and don’t care what others may think about them.

All these people are expressing themselves in the video and it seems they seek pleasure from everything they are doing. By going through all the discussed details from the commercial, it becomes clear that Levi’s has chosen Hedonists as their target audience.

Who are Hedonists?

Lifestyle and Values: Hedonists are known as extremely outgoing people. They enjoy communicating and being surrounded by big groups of people. Representatives of this target segment are very spontaneous about their life, decisions, and activities and strive to have as much fun as possible. “We only live once” is a perfectly suitable life motto for people belonging to the Hedonist target segment. They like constant changes in their environment, activities, occupation. Hedonists very often refresh people around them and seek meeting new people.

When it comes to priorities of Hedonists, the family is not among them.  Above all and everything, Hedonists put themselves. They focus mostly on themselves and take care of have they look. Their appearance is particularly important for them and they always look proper and put together.

This segment enjoys hanging out and like visiting pubs, clubs with loud music and full of people. Hedonists like having fun and spending time with friends is another preferable way of enjoying time. They live every moment to its fullest and try to get enjoyment as much as possible.

Attitude to Shopping: People who belong to the Hedonist target segment tend to give preference to the mainstream brands. They strongly believe that there are a link and interconnection between brand labels and a person’s image. They mainly give importance to the authenticity of products when shopping as it highlights their appreciation of “real” things.

Hedonists choose clothes that help them to stand out. Hedonists are known as impulsive shoppers. These people don’t have the habit of making shopping lists and planning their shopping. They like to keep up with the trends, look good, and grab attention with their appearance.

Some interesting facts about Hedonists

• Hedonists are always there for games, challenges, and entertaining activities. They usually enjoy playing video games, gambling machines, and lottery
• They don’t watch TV much, but whenever they do something mainstream that can interest them would be their choice.
• People from the Hedonist segment use the Internet all the time. They like to communicate, chat with friends, and receive information and news about social events, gatherings, and parties from social media.

16 Personalities (Which one is for your business?)

Casual and quality clothing, always following the trends and helping customers stand out; is what Levi’s cherishes since their establishment. The product offering is one side of the coin, leaving questions like “How the brands succeeded to stay relevant? Is that only the product?”. Levi’s and GAP are perfect examples of how to execute a perfect segmentation strategy that will bring sustainable growth. Both our brands target Hedonists buyer persona.

For their love of life, enjoyment, and adventurous character, Hedonists are perfect customers for Levi’s and GAP. They are outgoing, love hanging out with friends and also meet new people. This explains the fact that they give much importance to looks and shopping, and try to purchase authentic goods when they can.

Clothing brands need to provide variety to cover their targeted segment as much as possible. Knowing your products is good, and knowing your customers is great. Levi’s has always started by knowing their customers in detail, and this explains its success in the market so far. Want to be like Levi’s and GAP in your market? Check out our e-book and find your customer among 16 Personalities. The book offers detailed information on the attitudes, life preferences, and lifestyles of 16 buyer personas. They will help you adjust for customers, serve them and enjoy their satisfaction in return.

Moving on to Gap, let’s look at a campaign example of the brand.

GAP was always known for being an inclusive brand that had something to offer to everyone despite their age, gender, race, and preference. The product range of the brand is very casual, practical, extensive, and authentic.

All these characteristics make GAP a perfect option when it comes to choosing presents. Considering this, the recent campaign put out by GAP seems fairly logical. The purpose of the campaign was to present the launch of the holiday platform called “Gift the Thought”.

Let’s go through a short film called “The Hoodie” presenting the “Gift the Thought” campaign by Gap.

The film tells a story about a mom and her son. It depicts both happy and hard times from their life and their everlasting connection and love towards each other. They have a very strong bond and are by each other’s side no matter what. In the beginning mother gifts an iconic Gap hoodie to her son when he is just a child, and in the end the son receives the same gift as an adult.

The son seems overwhelmed and happy in both cases and seems to have an emotional connection to this item. This shows the timelessness that this gift has and the mix of emotions and feelings related to it. The hoodie is not just a gift in this case, but much more.

The brand managed to come up with a very heartwarming, relatable, and pleasant campaign that came out to be quite successful. This campaign is strong and actual at all times. It is all about putting meaning, emotions, and feelings into the gift.

Now, let’s go through the communication strategy of GAP. 

“For every generation there’s a GAP”

GAP has never introduced or presented an official slogan for the brand throughout the years. Instead, a line from a popular commercial of the brand became their slogan. Stories like this are not rare. This famous line was a part of the heartwarming and engaging commercial that GAP presented in 1991. It is not surprising that this phrase from the commercial has grown into the slogan of the brand as it resembles GAP perfectly. That’s why customers directly associated the initial meaning that the slogan carried with GAP.

The slogan perfectly summarizes the general idea of GAP and creates some type of emotional connection with customers. It is honest, simple, precise without any extra words or underlines. The slogan speaks about how diverse, inclusive, and extensive the production line of the company is.

When you read the slogan of GAP, you get the sense that you can indeed find something corresponding to your needs and preferences in the production of the brand. Also, you feel like you can trust the brand and get the best deal when spending your money on GAP products. The slogan speaks about the timelessness and adaptiveness of GAP to all times and trends, which helps it to always stay on track.

It’s time to identify the segmentation strategy of Gap.

To do so, let’s have a look at the following commercial.

This commercial is remarkably simple, calming, and unique despite having many details and characters in it. The focus of the commercial is the denim production of the brand. We can see that the predominant color pallet is quite pleasing and beautiful. The combination of blue and white gives a sense of simplicity, comfort, and everlasting trendiness.

These two colors look good on everyone and can be a key for quickly creating beautiful and trendy looks. There are movements and dynamism throughout the video which makes it positive and engaging. The commercial features a big number of young people, who come together at the end of the commercial.

The characters from the commercial are mainly young individuals. They are quite different in their sizes, shapes, tastes, appearances, and styles. Although they all are wearing denim jeans by GAP that looks quite good in them. All these young individuals look incredibly positive, confident, humble, and active. They seem to enjoy their lives, communicate with each other.

They are enjoying the comfort of their clothing but are not only focused on what they are wearing but the surrounding. They seem open, welcoming, and nice. All these discussed details about the commercial make it clear that GAP focuses on targeting people from a segment known as Conscious Progressive.

Who are Conscious Progressives?

Lifestyle and Values: 

Representatives of Conscious Progressive target segment are intellectual young people who have quite an open outlook towards life. They make decisions aiming to make their lives better, and constantly seek knowledge and information to be more skilled in every situation. They don’t spend money without necessity and tend to show a practical mindset in everything.

Conscious Progressives value honesty and try to be honest with others as well. They mainly have a casual style, like to look good and put together. Nevertheless, their appearance is not a priority for them. These people like spending time with friends and organize gatherings.

Conscious Progressives rely on their brain and knowledge all the time in all situations. This is why they give big importance to education and continuous self-improvement. They want to have a successful career which they can build without sacrificing their values or themselves. These people lead an active social life, are quite adventurous and curious about everything.

Attitude to Shopping: 

Like most people, Conscious Progressives purchase products for emotional reasons but are comparably more demanding. They don’t just look at the packaging of the product, but often need to find out more about it and its functionality.

These people give big importance to the quality of products and it is a crucial factor for them when buying products. When shopping, they try to buy trendy things mainly in casual style. The comfort of purchased products is also significant for them and can influence their purchase decisions.  

Some interesting facts about Conscious Progressives

• People from this segment like participating in debates on modern topics related to the social, environmental, and political issues in the world.
• Conscious Progressives are very loyal and committed to every relationship. All their personal relationships are mainly deep, strong, and long-term.
• They use the internet all the time as the biggest source of information, a platform to communicate and keep in touch with friends. This is the source that helps them to keep their minds open and informed.

Both Levi’s and GAP have been present in fashion and clothing for many years and can be considered quite experienced in what they do. They are successful, popular, and strong brands who are passionate about their journeys and future. Without any doubt, we will see both of them growing and pleasing their customers further on with their high-quality and authentic products. That’s it for Levi’s and GAP and their strategies. Check out the main page of our website for more posts like this.